1.5 Simplicity's State of the Game

Additional thoughts:

Blank space still takes up a lot of the map.  It'd be nicer if there was necessary resources in there like Dyson spheres, or something.

Asteroids should be made to do something again.

Nebula should be even larger.

The zoom level at which things become icons should be adjustable.

The  point you make about planet sensor range and defences is a really good one. As you put it - you defend with fleets, so planets should  able to build buildings that bolster fleets in orbit. Or even add to them with fighters etc. Also mYaybe the best orbital defence you can buy is a good sensor system to see fleets coming a loong way away and respond accordingly....

3. I like this. It makes the game more varied and less predictable. It also means that sometimes you get to feel powerful or underpowered, which adds flavor to the game. I get it why not everybody might like this though. I would not protest if somebody added a "balanced planets" setting for galaxies.

4. You can disable tech trading, which I always do.

The GC series has always had a huge problem with starting position being way too important. I mean, fine, the AI is still terrible. You can still win even if you start off at a huge handicap. I mean, that's basically what all higher difficulty levels in 4X games are anyway, right? But you make the *choice* to up the Cheater Meter. You don't make a choice to start off in the corner of the map with only one colonizable world within reach while the AI gets six colonies and a space pony.

The viability of a "tall" game needs to be amplified pretty significantly if those bad starting spots are going to feel like something that forces you to change your strategy, rather than just forcing you to play a more difficult match that you didn't sign up for.

The whole tall/wide problem links in pretty well with another post I just made in another thread about the problems with playing a peaceful game under the current ruleset. Basically, peaceful victory is a sideshow that's never going to feel balanced. Either it's an easy to way to do an end-run around the AI, or it's useless because it can't overcome the baseline "spam colonies and ships" route.

Tall, peaceful empires should be a thing - the ivory tower of pure research, the centralized bastion of peace and civility, the trading hub whose sudden destruction would bankrupt the galaxy. All are great templates for tall empires, and none of them are really possible right now, for the reason I just mentioned.

Tech trading needs a lot of UI work at a minimum. Some substantive decision should probably also be made about how the choice-based techs interact with the trading scheme. But in terms of tech bloat, the only solution I have at-hand is the one I already talked about in my other post: make all diplomatic actions cost something, give peaceful players ways to accrue that resource, make people actually think about what it's worth to them to swap all of the techs amongst all of the races. I mean, if the AI were less bad that last consideration would be more pressing anyway, but I don't think that's the whole of the issue.

Basically, you win by having more planets and bigger planets.  Which would be fine, except that you cannot defend all of those planets without a strong fleet.  You can try to play peaceful, but the larger your borders, the more impossible it becomes to keep people from just gobbling up an undefended planet before you can even see their ships coming.  So, if you have to have large numbers of ships, you might as well be playing militarily.  It's unfortunate.  You can have the best tech, the best ships, but one fleet cannot hold an empire.  And it is because planets are limp noodles.

Isn't it possible to use starbases to defend planets? If not the game should be changed so that any starbase within a planet's area must be destroyed before any invasion can begin.

Yes with the right techs you can make a planet almost immune to invasion. 

So things have been changed? Because I am pretty certain that in the past the AI would just ignore bases and go straight for planets.

They still do,  but there are starbase modules you can use to greatly up the planets defense

I don't see any such starbase modules in my tech tree...  Not sure which tech you are talking about?

Maybe it's only in certain race's trees?

If you're planet can't maintain high/max approval on its own economic starbases will help in your defence by boosting your morale and therefore your approval.  You can get up to 25% bonus to resistance through high approval.  All I think military starbases can do is boost any defending ships.

+25% isn't going to do a whole lot.  That doesn't really solve planet defense.

Never came up in the games my friend let me play last week, but IIRC there are buildings that boost planetary defense. One costs a resource. But the tooltips only say conventional invasion. So that leaves some unanswered questions.

With real estate being so valuable, and the AI not respecting you unless you have tons of ships, it sort of seems futile. But if you're willing to give up two slots on every planet and you have the resource you need, I guess you could try it?

They really should just make it so that any starbase within a planet's zone of control must be destroyed before any invasion can begin.

Or they could just, you know, let starbases orbit planets like you'd expect them to be able to.

Then they act as defensive fleets, and they'd give planets additional sensor range.

Of course this brings me to another complaint, that the star base range is too small, requiring you to produce too many starbases.  If they'd just up the range, so that it's more likely than not that you're getting multiple planets per base...  You wouldn't HAVE to build so many constructors.  Military bases would become useful because they'd actually cover some reasonable area.

What if you have 2 starbases for the same planet?

Earth has two existing orbital stations.  Sounds like a thing you could do.  It would probably be a tough nut to crack though with two or more.  So for game purposes, it's probably better to only allow one.

Does that mean I have been wasting stations when I gave some of my planets more than 1?

I'm not proposing removing starbases from the map.  I'm just saying that they should be able to occupy the hex of a planet.  You can't put multiple starbases in one hex as is.

That's not what I meant. Putting starbases close to planets gives them a boost correct? So it's possible to boost the same planet with more than 1 starbase correct?

Yes, the effects from all starbases stack.

Interesting. Does this mean it's possible to spam the same kind of starbase over and over to give a planet huge stats? Or can you only use each type once? (one economy, one research etc). Surely there is some limit to the number of starbases you can use on a planet?

Yes, it's possible to use the same kind of starbase to boost a planet. Starbases need to be at least 5 hexes apart from each other, so you can't just spam them.